Ashes to Ashes
by Minibit
Summary: In a second, it'll hit me. Any minute now. Edward Elric is dead. RoyEd, R&R, Rated for language


I think I cracked the doorframe slamming the things shut behind me, if I didn't outright smash it.

Somehow I made it to my desk before falling over. I'm not sure what possessed me to come here instead of going home, or anywhere else logically private, for that matter. But it doesn't really matter; it's Sunday. Nobody else is in the office today; and even if they were, I'm pretty sure a glance at me would shut them up.

I know I must be a mess, not physically speaking; but my face has always been an open book when it's not hiding behind confidence. Right now it's pressed into the wooden surface of my desk, my arms pushed a bunch of paperwork off of it when I slumped down, but I don't remember hearing the files hit the floor. I take a breath, and let it out, slowly.

In a second, it'll hit me. Any minute now.

Edward Elric is dead.

Something breaks; it's not violent; not a crash, not a snap. A loose thread, somewhere behind my breastbone, falls apart.

Edward Elric is dead.

I close my eyes; a shiver like cold water pours over me, head to toe. Shot through the heart; dead on impact. Likely painless, Hawkeye said. Likely. The body identified, down to the last scar. Al buried him in Risembool, next to his mother.

Edward Elric, the Fullmetal alchemist, the hero of the people, the light that swept colour back into my life in such vivacity it almost blinded me. Is as cold and dead and gray as the clouds gathering outside.

And I still can't process it.

Water, thirty-five litres, carbon, twenty kilograms, ammonia, four litres, lime, one –point-five kilograms. Phosphorus... how much phosphorus again? Eight hundred grams, wasn't it? Or nine?

Groaning, I grind my head into the desk. Contemplating the forbidden again; how predictable of me. And how damnably limited. I can't see past it; I'm trying to conjure the image of Edward not bursting through those doors like a blond tornado, and it's just not happening. I'm trying to imagine getting up, coming to work, skimming over paperwork and not wondering where he is or what he's up to or worrying if he's all right; and I just can't. That's the way my world works, it's like trying to imagine a dark sun, or dry water.

Regret slams through the veins in my temples, saving the desk the trouble; I'd always told myself it was useless, not to mention several kinds of illegal, to think about the kid in 'that' way, much less to fantasize about him. Now I can't help wondering if it's the most colossal mistake I've ever made, not doing anything, not saying anything.

You never know, after all. A little bird told me Edward had yet to look twice at a girl.

Now I'll never know, I guess. I wonder, distantly, if eventually he will disappear, if I'll stop seeing him ghosting across the back of my eyelids at night. Teasing me without knowing it during the day.

"Insolent brat."

Somehow the dry voice crawls out of my lungs; it sounds foreign. I feel like it ought to echo; I almost wait for the familiar screeching as the kid finds some way to relate the insult to his lack of height. I want to look up to watch his smooth, perfect features shade themselves as red as his coat. It won't happen. I know it won't happen. He's gone. My head knows that, but I still want to look up. Instead I continue muttering bitterly into the hardwood. "You still owe me, kid. You said you were gonna pay me back when I got promoted; how're you planning to do that now, dumbass."

"No, I told you I'd pay you back once you make this place a democracy."

I blink, but I don't move. Okay, this is just unfair; if I'm going to hallucinate, can't I just hallucinate a bottle of something hard to make this all disappear?

"So do you make a habit of insulting the dead or am I a special case?"

No hallucination; the smooth tenor that floats through my mind of nights is as real as the desk that is slowly flattening the side of my face. Looking up, I see first the heavy door sitting ajar, and second the pipsqueak reclining on my couch, scratching something off of the back of his steel hand.

"Edward?"

"You know, you're making me feel almost bad about this. I was expecting to find you complaining about all the paperwork my 'death' would have you drowning in."

"Edward?"

"Yes, me. Geez, what a time for the mail coach to get totalled. Hell of a processing error."

I stare, no, I gape, unreservedly. Between loss and confusion there's nothing left to hold neutrality on my face, and it sits shattered on the desk in front of me.

"Where to begin... Well I faked my death for starters, but I guess you figured that one out."

I do nothing, I don't nod, I don't make a smart remark, I just stare like a man dying of thirst drinking with his eyes.

"That damn bastard you had me chasing – nice of you to finally give me a challenge, by the way – was blocking me off at every turn. Faking my death as genuinely as possible – letters letting people know and all – was the only way to get him to come out in the open again. I DID get Al to send you a letter telling you all that and he swears on Mom's grave he sent it, turns out the mail truck got attacked; big fire. Need I say more?"

"Yes."

Somehow I manage not to sound like my throat is a dustbowl. I also manage to stand up without rubber knees making me fall on my ass.

"You need to say a LOT more. You got off a note to Al, couldn't you get a note off to me? Did you think he was the only one who worries about you?"

I can't help that I'm shouting by the end. Surprise sweeps over his face like a fell wind.

"Well?"

"I... I was going to have him let you know... what's the big deal?"

"Whats the-"

I can't even finish; my voice strangles itself halfway through repeating his question.

"I thought you were DEAD Is the big deal!"

I've never seen him flinch before. Not from words.

"Didn't you think, even once" I continue, forcing myself to be calmer, at least in tone, "The impact that would have?"

"Of course, that's why I got Al to – "

"Snail mail takes about two weeks to get from A to B, Ed. You were going to make m – make everyone live with this for that long?"

"Its just two weeks, anyway I'm alive, aren't I? That's-"

"Do I need to throw a load of bricks at your chest or just turn your heart inside out to make you understand?"

"...what?"

For once, his voice is as small as his stature.

"Damnit, Ed" I sink back into my seat, and bury my forehead in my hands, closing my eyes.

"How the hell would this place go on without you ripping my life apart every five minutes?"

"A lot better, I expect."

Bitterness laces the tone like arsenic.

"That depends on your definition of better." I mutter. "If boring, mundane, pointless, all classify as 'better', then yeah, it'd be tops without you around."

"All you do is complain how much trouble I am for you; don't try to play nice just cause I'm supposed to be dead."

"I'd miss you."

"... What."

"Like crazy. This place – no, everywhere, is black and white without you and your tacky red coat. I'd miss worrying about you all the time, I'd even miss your blowing my ear off just cause I'm taller than you"

"Oh can it, EVERYBODY'S freakishly tall in this country; I'm going to move to Xing."

"Ling's taller than you, too."

"He's a freak of his race."

"Sure."

"Would you miss me calling you Colonel Bastard, too, cause it'll perk you right up to know that won't stop." he growls

"Yeah, actually. A bit."

I look up. He doesn't seem to know quite what to do with that; but the blush creeping across his cheekbones is freakishly adorable.

"You'd miss me insulting you."

It's almost a question.

"Do you call anyone else 'colonel bastard'?"

"Well, no, but-"

"Then that's something you do with me only and that makes it special. Yeah, I'd miss it."

"W-What the hell, Mustang, I'm not in the mood to be mindfucked"

I really have unsettled him; he seldom stoops to profanity that bad. "Wh's mindfucking? I'm just-"

"What you're doing is teasing me and its not fair."

He turns around to go.

"Edward Elric"

Apparently he didn't notice me get out from behind the desk; he seems startled to find me that much closer.

"Y-yeah?"

He's trying to sound tough; but he's failing with that look.

"If you were gone I'd miss you like no tomorrow and you are not leaving this room until you comprehend why and how much."

"Careful, Mustang, you're starting to sound like you give a rat's ass."

"Well I do"

"So what're you gonna do, force me through your paperwork until I realise what a pain it is to remove someone from records?"

"Why would I do that if I cared about you?"

"You're freaking me out a bit here."

"Am I?"

"W-well at any rate it's not fair to tease me – either drop the joke or –"

"Or what"

"I don't know! Stop being so goddamn vague! What are you trying to say?"

"You know, I've never been very good with words."

I wanted to find some excuse to touch him and prove he wasn't a mirage since the second he walked in. But I'd thought, a pat on the shoulder, or the head, something demeaning; measuring his diminutive height, would be appropriate; wouldn't give anything away. Nothing ventured.

So it's still a mystery why I went and took his hand instead, and gave it a bit of a tug to make him step forward. His eyes were the size of saucers.

"W-what..." That small voice makes my breath catch, and it's not what he said, its not how he said it, it's the something hiding behind the sound that forms itself into a thread, and draws my free hand up like a marionette to his face.

It sounds like hope.

I'm frozen in space, trying ot echo that sound that isn't a sound in my head so I can hear it again and confirm its existence when I catch two hands tugging at my collar, bringing me downward, and that 'I'm-not-saying-anything' determined look on his face. He may not be saying anything, but he's asking volumes, and I intend to shut him up before my heart rate increases any more and I die of cardiac arrest.

He relaxes under me almost right away; yielding taste and texture that swells and roars in my ears and spins the building and makes me dizzy. I let his hand go and tangle my fingers up in his hair so it doesn't spin me off because I'm certain I'll die if I have to move away.

But I have to eventually, and I'm left to recover with Edward's arms looped under mine clutching the back of my shirt, trying to catch my breath while he's repeating something by my ear over and over. I try to clear my head

"I didn't know you – I thought you didn't... that you wouldn't... not that I don't... I'm sorry"

"Don't EVER scare me like that again."

"I won't, I-"

A finger across his lips is enough to shut him up for a second, but I have a feeling that won't last long once I tell him my idea for how he can make it up to me.

OH YES I DID.


End file.
